Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Trevasaurus]

I had a lot of fun building a long distance plane for trips around the world and since I suck at getting to the moon Ill give this a go. Im guessing it will be hard to get the right fuel/thrust ratio to make it all the way around with stock parts but failing horribly is the real appeal of this game for me.

[sluissa]

I think it'll be nigh impossible to make it around with stock parts. People were seeming to possibly manage with modded in parts. But one of the big problems was fatigue. Manually piloting something like that for the hours and hours and hours it'd take for a circumnavigation isn't exactly easy.

[Girlinhat]

The game in short?

Take a Dwarf.  Now make him green, with a big head.  Alright?  His name is Jebediah.  He has a desire, a drive to a goal.  He will get into space.  He will!  Unfortunately he has no idea how to build a rocket, but that's ok.  He found a solid rocket booster on the side of the road, and there's some surplus metal supports over in the junkyard.  With nothing more than a nose-cone, a few tones of jet fuel, and a smile that demands the demented suicide of all who witness his joyous grin, this little disguised dwarf is going to the stars.  Very likely, doing so with no fuel for return, no rockets to use his fuel stock on, or most likely in pieces.

The physics are real, the rockets are not.  Tower up your rocket, set the activation stages, and watch it all go terribly terribly wrong.

ALSO: You can orbit in upper atmosphere.  20km is extremely close, I think the atmosphere goes up to like 80km or so, right?

[Trevasaurus]

I was able to find a sweet spot in regards to thrust/angle that kept me level at a couple of hundred metres off the ground. Obviously I wasnt going very fast but I think that for fuel conservation max power is probably not the right way to go. The hardest thing seems to be getting enough fuel to make it around without ruining the flying ability/speed of the craft.

[Sheb]

Which of course mean you need a huge, kick-ass aircraft. Let's start by seeing who can go the furthest without going above 10 km. Winner will win something.

[Criptfeind]

So, I started playing this game.

21 space ships later I escape earth orbit and head for the moon.

Spoiler: Captain Bills Diary (click to show/hide)

day 1: Realized I was fucked
day 14: stopped going away from earth
day 30: stopped accelerating
day 40: Noticed I was again going away from earth
day 60: Sun visibly shrunken
day 62: Heading back to earth
day 85: Still moving towards the earth. Still speeding up
day 95: Sun much bigger
day 100: Heading away from the earth
day 121: Speed slowing by quite a bit
day 132: Heading towards earth. Speeding up
day 145: Food ran out. So has Jebediah and Bobs flesh
day 152: feel weak. No food. Water running low. Death soon.
day 158: Take me sun. I see you. Take me.

So.

Turns out the moon is hard to hit.

At the most I was 13 billion meters from the earth. With 165 billion meters total traveled.

[Peewee]

There's a really easy visual cue that will get you to the mun's SOI every time.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Launch toward 90 degrees into a roughly circular, lowish (<300km) orbit, then wait for the mun to appear on the horizon. Burn until your orbit slightly exceeds the mun's altitude (use M).

[Roboboy33]

I got a spaceship to orbit the sun!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

There it is right after its Periapsis. The blue ball is kerbin.

[Aqizzar]

There's a really easy visual cue that will get you to the mun's SOI every time.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Launch toward 90 degrees into a roughly circular, lowish (<300km) orbit, then wait for the mun to appear on the horizon. Burn until your orbit slightly exceeds the mun's altitude (use M).

This method is pretty good, but it doesn't really give you an appreciation for how you and the moon meet it orbit, typically entering it's realm doing about 3000m/s.  I managed to control my slingshot enough to get back into Kerbin orbit, but it's going to take me more tries and more fuel to hit a stable orbit.  God only knows what landing on it would be like.

[Peewee]

There's a really easy visual cue that will get you to the mun's SOI every time.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Launch toward 90 degrees into a roughly circular, lowish (<300km) orbit, then wait for the mun to appear on the horizon. Burn until your orbit slightly exceeds the mun's altitude (use M).

This method is pretty good, but it doesn't really give you an appreciation for how you and the moon meet it orbit, typically entering it's realm doing about 3000m/s.  I managed to control my slingshot enough to get back into Kerbin orbit, but it's going to take me more tries and more fuel to hit a stable orbit.  God only knows what landing on it would be like.

... Dunno how you're doing it, but I'm usually at around 350 m/s relative speed upon entering the mun SOI.
(just tested it out and I was at ~600 m/s at my munar periapsis of ~230 km)

[Nilik]

So has anyone here actually made it to the Mun, landed intact and then made it off the Mun and back to Kerbin intact? The very best I've managed is getting to the Mun, landing, blasting off from the Mun with only RCS fuel left, missing Kerbin completely and ending up orbiting the sun. It seems that the majority of people's failed missions that don't end in explosions end in orbit around Kerbol.

Oh and for reference... because tiny things like these bother me...

The little green guys = Kerbals
Their surnames = Kerman
The planet they live on = Kerbin
The sun that planet orbits = Kerbol
The moon = The Mun

Thank you, this has been a public service announcement.

[Peewee]

So has anyone here actually made it to the Mun, landed intact and then made it off the Mun and back to Kerbin intact?

Yep. Want to see the rocket I did it in?

[LoSboccacc]

So has anyone here actually made it to the Mun, landed intact and then made it off the Mun and back to Kerbin intact?

Yep. Want to see the rocket I did it in?

me too! (even on standard parts)
I've recorded some failures and navigation instructions there http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/index.php?topic=3961.msg44263#msg44263 (it's using nova silisko mod due to landing legs and being nicer in screenshots)

it's pretty easy once you have a craft that is consistently flying so you can predict its trajectory.

[Peewee]

Bah, mods. I do everything with stock parts. I just did it again for fun and picture taking.

http://imageshack.us/g/252/ship1z.png/
(album)

1&2: On the pad, ready for liftoff. Perhaps not the most realistic ship...
Note that the bottom control fins are blocked by the extra LFTs, but I'm not complaining.
The side attached LFTs are ejected as soon as each set runs out of fuel, as well as the obvious SRBs.
It's not until the second set of LFTs is ejected that the center, vector-thrusting engine ignites.
This ensures stability after the top and bottom fins are ejected, about halfway through the top set of fuel tanks.
3: The lander has enough fuel in the landing gear to make the TMI then land, with four quarter-tanks left.
4: Safely home. It only took ~3/4 of the first fuel tank to get off the mun and then lower the periapsis down to 40 km.
I dumped the fuel tanks and waited through the long aerobraking.
5: I was late in hitting the stage button, so I ended up throwing the landing gear around the mun a bit, hence the explosions.
Note the low g-max, which probably occurred when the chute opened.

Not pictured is the complete munar orbit at 740m +-2m

[Sordid]

The moon = The Mun

Actually it's the Mün, but most people can't be bothered to type that properly.